She was only 22 when she started Graffiti Graphics, a local business that began as air-brushed T-shirts and evolved to graphic design. In 2000, she founded the publication Jabberblabber, a tabloid for kids. And in 2010, she started selling a line of food products that at the time was called Nikki's Hot Ass, so named because when she was mixing it for personal use, her friends would ask for it by that name.

Today the products, having gone through one change to Nikki's Hot A** products, are known simply as Nikki's Hot Products to make them easier to market as some grocers wouldn't allow the original packaging on their shelves.

She sells Nikki's Hot Seasoning, Nikki's Hot Chips, Nikki's Cool Chips and Nikki's Hot Bloody Mary Mix in about 200 outlets in the region. None of them are manufactured in Tennessee or contain Tennessee produce, yet her company is listed on the Pick Tennessee website.

Whether she should be on the list of Pick Tennessee products is questionable, but guidelines for inclusion are vague and membership is not limited to food products nor to mom and pops. Members also include businesses that promote agri-tourism, such as county fairs, farms that offer tours and even summer camps if they have an agricultural connection. McKee Foods Corporation in Collegedale, the parent company of Little Debbie, Drake's Cakes, Fieldstone Bakery, Sunbelt Bakery and Heartland Brands, with $1.4 billion in annual sales, is a member. So is Moon Pie, which rolls 1 million of its iconic marshmallow-and-cookie hand pies out of its Chattanooga facility daily.

A USA TODAY Network investigation found that state-branding programs designed to help inform consumers and support local farmers are deceptive and virtually unregulated. Yet Pick Tennessee is clear about its purpose.

"We are about marketing," said Debbie Ball, agribusiness development consultant at the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.

Is it really local?

A team of reporters reviewed food branding programs in every state and found a hodgepodge of rules and regulations far more focused on marketing than enforcement. More than half the states put “local” labels on products even if 50 percent of the ingredients come from outside the state. More than a dozen states have no minimum ingredient requirement at all.

24 states let companies sign up and call their food local without the means to ensure products meet program requirements.

18 states include non-food products in their branding programs.

17 states have no minimum requirement on the amount of ingredients a product must contain to get a local brand.

12 states initiate reviews only if complaints are filed, which almost never happens.

5 states reported removing participants from programs.

4 states do not have programs.

Pick Tennessee is not a regulatory agency and does not charge a membership fee, but any business applying for certification must fill out an application and meet requirements. Not everyone makes it. Of about 200 annual applications, last year 12 were denied. In 2014, 51 applications were denied in one form or another, but it was an audit year and some businesses listed as denied were simply removed from the list. The business might have closed, Ball said.

Pick Tennessee:

Is a program of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.

Is funded from the general fund; the budget has ranged in recent years from $47,000 to $112,000, and averages about $75,000.

Runs the website picktnproducts.org, which lists members and products; there is also a free PickTN mobile app.

Is one of the oldest state programs; it started in 1986 with a brochure of Tennessee products.

"Food products that are manufactured or processed in Tennessee must use a Tennessee ingredient if available," Ball said. But there is no minimum requirement, and processing alone is enough to allow inclusion to the list.

Farmers must grow their products in Tennessee, so while a Pick Tennessee tomato must be grown in the state, a tomato relish made in Tennessee is only required to contain Tennessee ingredients if available, based on seasonality.

The Pick Tennessee effect

Allan Benton, owner of Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams in Madisonville, is known all over country for his prize-winning hams and smoky bacon. But he credits the Tennessee Department of Agriculture with his success.

"We're all about Pick Tennessee," he said. "I think the Tennessee Department of Agriculture has done an amazing job and I couldn't repay them if I tried."

In the mid-90s, Blackberry Farm in Walland started using Benton's products at its restaurant. A few years later, a chef in Nashville did the same. Around that time, a representative of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture called him, asked him to bring a ham for a photo shoot and talked to him about marketing his products to Tennessee restaurants.

"I never even thought about it," he said. "I'd been in business more than a few years by then and I was shipping to New York City, to Napa, to New Orleans, and I had the one chef in Nashville. But I didn't think anything about Tennessee restaurants. I just figured it was plain old food to everyone around here."

Today his products, from his country ham to his prosciutto to his very smoky bacon, are in more than 200 restaurants across the state. They're still smoked in the old smokehouse (though he added a new one a few years ago) and Benton is as likely to answer the phone and take an order as is the next person.

"Pick Tennessee is our consumer-facing marketing tool, but we also work on business development," Ball said. "It's not always a one-to-one connection like that, but it's all to help promote Tennessee agricultural businesses, large and small."

To that end, Ball or other Pick Tennessee representatives attend trade shows; host networking events with chefs in different areas of the state to provide information about local products; buy print and radio ads; and maintain a website that features a bit of information and links, where available, to about 2,500 members with about 10,000 products.

What Pick Tennessee means to consumers

Whether the brand inspires buyers to purchase is questionable. An informal survey of generally food-savvy West Tennesseans showed they're not familiar or only vaguely aware of Pick Tennessee.

Schroeder came across it when she was designing packaging for a fertilizer bearing the label.

"I am all about local in every way, so I looked it up and applied," she said. "I'd never heard about it before then. I don't know that it's done anything for me though."

Robert Tims of Tims Family Farm in Ripley believes that in general the program is a good one, but he doesn't use the labeling on any of his stands in farmer's markets.

"I just never thought about it," he said. "I don't know if people know what it means."

Yet Benton says that while he doesn't use the labeling on his packages, local farmers in his neck of East Tennessee do.

"They (Pick Tennessee) have really helped out these small guys," he said. "When you go to farmer's markets around here on a Saturday, you better get there by 9 a.m. because everything sells out. And almost all those farmers have a Pick Tennessee logo on their stands."